Taunton doctor advocates benefits of medical marijuana

A leading researcher from Harvard Medical School and a Taunton doctor who has studied the drug both say yes, and that it's high time the sick had legal access to it.

Harvard's Dr. Lester Grinspoon has researched marijuana since the 1970s, and said the legalization of pot will lead to a new field of called "cannabinopathic medicine."

Grinspoon, who admits to smoking marijuana, said he was once like much of the country and was "brainwashed" into thinking pot was a dangerous drug.

"I was amazed," Grinspoon said. "It's harmfulness has been greatly exaggerated and its usefulness underestimated."

Grinspoon says marijuana is less toxic than aspirin, which accounts for 1,000 to 2,000 deaths annually. On the other hand, Grinspoon says there's never been a marijuana-related death.

A Taunton doctor and leading expert on marijuana agrees with Grinspoon that marijuana can help.

"It's an important tool for the doctor," said Dr. Eric J. Ruby. "I feel it's as important as any alternative medicine."

Grinspoon blames the federal government for a massive cover-up that began in the 1930s, when the newly formed Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, later renamed the Drug Enforcement Administration, began a campaign of deceptive propaganda targeting marijuana.

The agency was looking for funding and enacted the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which effectively halted experimentation and use; Grinspoon said up until 1937, marijuana was sold over the counter, and doctors regularly prescribed it as an extract for a host of ailments, including treating Queen Victoria's menstrual cramps.

The campaign against marijuana gained ground when the federal government produced the movie "Reefer Madness," he said, which sowed seeds of fear. In 1972, marijuana took another hit when the federal government classified it as Schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act.

Grinspoon said pharmaceutical companies are on the government side of the controversy because they can't patent marijuana, so they turn their backs on its potential and lobby to keep it illegal. Grinspoon says anyone can grow it, so marijuana can't be patented, even though the U.S. government holds a patent for synthetic marijuana, just in case.

Grinspoon says marijuana has multifaceted potential to treat everything from seizures to glaucoma. The major advantage of smoking it, he said, is the rapidity with which the medicinal effect appears.

It is not a cure for cancer, he said, but can be used in conjunction with radiation and chemotherapy. Grinspoon, 85, who has been diagnosed with prostrate cancer, has been smoking pot for four decades.

Ruby has been practicing medicine since 1977 and operates a private pediatrics office in Taunton. He has studied marijuana's effects and is considered a expert on medical marijuana.

Ruby dismissed claims that marijuana is a gateway drug that can lead to addiction to other drugs, saying opiates present that problem.

Ruby contends the pharmaceutical industry has a lot to lose when medical marijuana hits the streets.

"It works better than a lot of their overpriced, addictive, lethal drugs," he said.

Ruby wasn't always a proponent, until his son suffered a spinal cord injury in 2006 and found little relief from a litany of medication, including Percodan, Darvon and OxyContin. Ruby said his son's mood changed, his behavior changed and all he did was sleep.

Finally, in a last ditch effort, he tried marijuana.

"I was not in favor of him using an illegal substance," Ruby said.

But it proved to actually relax his son, and kept him off narcotics.

Ruby said the state Department of Public Health, through the wording of new marijuana legislation, is making it nearly impossible to obtain the drug.

"The Constitution of the United States is nine pages long," he said. "The regulations for these marijuana dispensaries is 52 pages. It tells me they didn't want it to happen or they want to regulate it so much it will be difficult for a doctor and patient to use what 63 percent of the voters supported.

"The way the law was established," he said, "it will be easier to rob a bank and get away with it than to rob a marijuana dispensary."

Ruby claims the black market is behind the continued prohibition, because it won't be profitable for dealers to sell something that is legal.

"I feel it is important as an alternative medicine," Ruby said. "It is inhuman to deny a vehicle that can give them quality of life for the last couple years of their life."

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